What We Know About Elder Scrolls V

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Didn't see one of these threads in this small and apparently new section of the forum. But I've been gone so long that everything seems new to me.

For those of you who haven't read all of the juicy details revealed by the Game Informer article, here is a summary.

The Setting
- TESV Skyrim will take place in Skyrim of course.
- The year is roughly 200 years after Oblivion, placing it about 160 years after the Infernal City and possibly its sequel.
- Until we know more about the sequel to the Infernal City, 160 years leaves a lot of room for speculation about events since then.
- There are 5 "massive" cities (Down from 7 on several maps). The ones seen so far are Whiterun, Windhelm, Riften, and what appears to be Solitude. Falkreath and Winterhold may be on this very blurry map, but neither have the same scale or presence as the other cities.

The Story
- You are the Dovahkiin, Dragonborn.
- Upholding proper Elder Scrolls tradition, you start as a prisoner with an unknown fate.
- While Dragonborn seems synonymous with the royal bloodlines of the Empire, it is only because one must be a Dragonborn to light the Dragonfires and ascend the throne. There are other non-emperor Dragonborns throughout history
- You are one of the few remaining, if not the last Dragonborn.
- The Blades were originally called the Dragonguard. Their duty used to be protecting the Dragonborn, but extended to protecting their descendents.
- A civil war is being waged in Skyrim. The two sides are anti-empire defectors and pro-empire loyalists. Whether it will be city vs city or faction vs faction only remains to be seen.
- Events in the previous games have slowly destabilized reality (Destroying the Numidium, Red Mountain, Amulet of Kings, etc etc)
- Because reality has been destabilized, Alduin (Akatosh) has come around to begin his destruction of the world.
- This is not the first time Alduin has terrorized the world (I think there were 3 before this?) but he hasn't been around for a long time.
- You are instructed by an ex-Blade named Esbern (Voiced by Max von Sydow of Minority Report and Shutter Island fame). Esbern is one of the few Blades remaining, and the order itself is nearly extinct.

The Gameplay
Quests
- Level scaling has not yet been confirmed. What has been stated, however, are randomly-generated quests that apply to your specific game. These quests will scale with level so they will always be a challenge.
- Random encounters related to your game may happen. If you are a powerful magic-user and are walking down the street of a city, another very powerful mage that lives in the city may challenge you to a duel.
- The main storyline will have more presence in the game, even if you are engaging in other tasks at the time.
Combat
- Combat has been overhauled to make it more challenging and fun. Backwards running speed has been reduced, and bows take longer to shoot, although they do more damage.
- There is now a two-hands approach to how you fight. You can put any one-handed weapon, spell, shield, or torch into any hand you prefer. This means that you can dual wield weapons, whether they be the same sword or different weapons like a mace and a dagger. You can also dual wield spells, and dual wielding the same spell makes it more powerful. They have not stated whether or not you can do other combinations like dual wield shields or two-handed weapons.
- A new combat sprint feature has been added. Your character can move much faster, but it rapidly drains fatigue.
- Third-person view has been improved
- There will be finishing moves depending on the weapon you are using.
- The player gains a few special abilities for being the Dragonborn.
- Characters can employ shield bashes to knock enemies off balance, providing opportunity to strike.
- When you slay an opponent, the death will have more impact. You should feel as if you actually ended a life, and haven't just mowed down standard dungeon trash. Finishing moves are a part of this goal.
- If you want to flee from an enemy in combat, you cannot just backpedal. You must actually turn around and sprint forwards in the other direction, with your back to your enemies. This makes fleeing a much riskier move, which should only be employed in dangerous circumstances.
- There will be "over 85 spells divided into five schools of magic". I am inclined to believe that they intended to say "spell effects" rather than just spells. 85 unique spells is a small number, and spells may have multiple effects across different schools of magic.
- Magic is no longer a separate function. Characters that use magic must now specialize with it in combat - equipping a spell means sacrificing a hand that could hold a shield or a sword. That also means that combat characters are less inclined to use spells as a secondary tool.
- There is more variety in spell usage. It is no longer just Self, Touch and Target. "For instance, you could blast enemies with a flame ball from afar, hold the button down to wield the spell like a flame thrower, place a rune on the ground to create an environmental trap that spontaneously combusts when an enemy steps on it, or equip the spell with both hands to deliver high damage fireball attacks that drain your magicka reserves quickly. The shock and frost spells give players an equal amount of flexibility."
- Havok behavior makes spell effects more visual on characters and the environment. "If you cast a frost spell, you'll see the effects on the enemy's skin. If you're wielding the flame spell like a flame thrower, the environment will catch fire for a short while and burn anything that comes into contact with it."
- Damaging spells now carry their own sub-effects that require player to use frost, shock, and fire spells in different circumstances. For instance, "Fire deals the highest amount of damage, lighting drains the enemy’s magicka, and frost drains stamina and slows down enemies physically." This applies equally to players, who must now protect themselves better against the spells of enemies.
- When fighting other magic users, it is best to keep a damaging spell in one hand and a protection spell in the other. Magical wards work like mundane shields in function, yet protect the user against magical effects as opposed to physical.
- Bethesda took inspiration from Bioshock's plasmids when designing the new magic system.
- A user-made mod inspired Bethesda to overhaul the bow system. If you are very proficient with marksman, you may be easily able to eliminate enemies with a single ranged sneak attack. It takes longer to shoot, but damage has been increased. As a secondary result, using bows in combat when the enemy is aware of your presence is an inadvisable option.
- "Arrows now violently impact enemies with a satisfying thud"
- "To keep players from coasting through the world plucking enemies from afar, Bethesda has significantly altered the arrow economy to make them a valuable but limited option. You won't be rolling into combat stacked with 50 Daedric arrows anymore."
- While stealth works just about the same as in Oblivion, enemies that are aware of your presence won't attack you directly. Instead, they will go into an alert state and actively search for the player. This gives players time to duck around a corner and disappear from sight before they are instantly attacked.
- Daggers are much more useful for sneak attacks. They will do much more damage than maces or swords when used against an unaware enemy. "You feel like you should be killing the guy if you’ve gotten that close and you have a dagger."
- The article hinted at a potential change for weapon skills. Rather than being labeled as a Blade skill, they referred to Daggers as a "one-handed weapon skill."
- Perks for daggers will be housed under stealth, even if they share the same functions as a sword
Characters
- Glorious beards!
- Character design has been overhauled and vastly improved. Different races will see their own customization options. You can customize bodies as well as faces. There appear to be some hairstyles now that can go past your neck. And overall, characters just look much, much better.
- When speaking to a character, it no longer zooms in on their head. Characters will interact with the world around them as they speak. They can move around, make gestures, and if they were working when you go to speak with them, they will continue to work as they talk.
- There will be children
- The AI has been improved. In the new Radiant AI, characters are now more advanced when it comes to detecting the world around them. The example given was when the player drops a mace in the street. A child may pick it up and return it to you. Someone may just steal it. Or, two warriors may discover it and fight over who gets to keep it.
- Certain quest givers can be killed. An example given is that you murder a shopkeeper with a quest. Later on, his sister inherits the store and may offer you that same quest, assuming she will speak to you after her brother's murder. This is also a part of Radiant AI.
- You may have companions, based on the deeds you've performed and your reputation with certain people.
Skills, Levels, and Perks
- There are now only 18 skills, down from 21 in Oblivion.
- Mysticism has been removed. Spells belonging to the school of Mysticism have been moved to other schools relevant enough to their effects.
- The Enchanting skill has been re-added. While it is nice to see a skill added, that means that a different skill from Oblivion has been removed.
- Smithing has replaced Armorer. While Smithing fulfills the function of Armorer, to repair armor, you may also forge new weapons and armor out of hot metal.
- You may perform new tradeskills in cities. It hasn't been stated what they do in terms of gameplay, but ones listed so far have been cooking, farming, mining, woodcutting and blacksmithing.
- Leveling has been greatly changed. Rather than pick certain skills that contribute experience to levels, all skills contribute experience. Higher skills contribute more experience, so it is recommended that the player continue to pick a few favorite skills to make the most out of experience.
- Classes have been removed to facilitate the new leveling system.
- A perk system similar to Fallout has been added. These perks will be relevant to Elder Scrolls and not just a shoutout to Bethesda's other series.

The Engine
- The Engine is called the Creation Engine. This is a new in-house engine to replace Gamebryo. It is built with tons of features suited specifically to Elder Scrolls.
- To go along with Creation Engine is the Creation Kit, our new Construction Set.
- Draw distance details have been much more refined and improved. The landscape-at-large will show off more details than trees, cities, and a flat solid color terrain when viewed from far away.
- Lighting has been improved. There will be much more realism and refinement between light and shadows.
- Water looks to be improved. The game may have the same water objects from Fallout 3/NV, that allow for blocks of water to be placed separately from the game's main water level.
- A new dynamic wind system has been created. Wind will dictate how the water moves, how trees more, and most importantly, how your character moves. It was implied that being on a high ledge in high winds may not be the safest thing to do.
- Bethesda created a new precipitation system. Artists can define how much snow hits a particular object. The system scans the geography, and then determines how much snow should land on the ground, rocks, trees, bushes, and so on.
- There will not be SpeedTree. It was mentioned that the trees and branches are all fixed, a feature not typical in SpeedTree. Later on, it was confirmed that SpeedTree was scrapped to make way for their own custom tree editor, which seems to be a part of the Creation Kit.
- Havok Technologies will be present in the engine. In addition, Animations will be handled by the new Havok Behavior, which is a very fluid and dynamic animation system. It can do things such as blend animations together and make them more prominent at different intervals, to create unique animations out of multiple basic ones. Havok Behavior is just about the best animation software on the market currently, and Bethesda will be one of the first companies to include it in a game.
- Radiant AI will be much more context-driven now, and less based on repetitive, preset events. Characters respond more realistically to your actions, and certain characters will respond differently to others under the same reactions. Barge into a friend's house at night, you may be offered a bed. You may be able to eat your friend's food in their house. Take out a weapon and smash things in their house around without actually picking it up, they may call the guards as if you attacked them personally. There are also more things in general for NPCs to do in cities, and the AI will be driven around those.
- Radiant Story is a new process of creating randomized quests, events, and other fun tidbits suited to each player. It will analyze all of your actions up to that point and essentially create a random encounter for you. This encounter can take the form of a quest offering, a run-in with a few NPC's to interact with, or random encounters of combat, whether it be an ambush or a duel. One example given is an assassination quest. Rather than pick a hapless stranger you've never met, the game may tell you to kill someone you already know, someone you are good friends with.


The Wildlife
- Dwemer Centurions
- Dragons, of course
- Wolves that look much more vicious than their Oblivion counterparts
- Giant spiders
- Undead (Draugr)
- Trolls
- Giants
- Ice Wraiths
- Horses
- Elk
- Mammoths
- Saber-toothed cats
- And best of all, Horkers!


I'm sure I'm missing plenty of things, but it's really late here (or early I guess by now) and I'm too tired to remember everything. If you know anything that I missed, mention it below and I'll put it up. I'll be stalking these forums until I go back to school

EDIT: Updated with details from GI's The Technology Behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and a few previous segments. Most of these updates went into the Engine section. Read all about the Creation Engine, and the changes to look forward to for modding.

EDIT 2: Updated with details from GI's Building Better Combat. Most of these updates fell into Combat. Read all about changes to battle above.

[Zurke]

Hi IAMTHEEMPEROR, the core decided on a new, cleaned up layout and implemented it. I think it is simpler to navigate. Thanks for the narrative.

edit: [strike]Good idea Deeza.[/strike]

Charles

[FLESH]

Great summary but just a small change. It has actually been stated that you can dual wield spells. And dual wielding the same spell makes it more powerful (kind of self evident I guess but they seemed to want to mention that).

[jucklesjenk]

Originally posted by IAMTHEEMPEROR
The Blades at this point seem to be no more.

GameInformer implies that there will be more blades, but they will be few:

Hidden deep in Skyrim stands the ancient Sky Haven Temple, a last refuge for the dwindling forces of the Blades.

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Updated with details from The Technology Behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Read all about the Creation Engine and the changes to how modding will work above.

[Deeza]

Thanks IATE! So is there any word on what mesh format the new engine will use?

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Not from what I've seen. In fact, I don't believe they've said anything except for the name of the tool and that it has a tree creation feature. What I can say is that it won't be .nif, because that is Gamebryo-specific. And I assume that textures will still be .dds format, considering it's the most popular out there.

If it's a popular file format, I'm sure there will be a plugin for the popular modeling programs out there. If there isn't, the large modding community of the Elder Scrolls will see that one is made. And if it's Bethesda's own format, then they are likely to release something themselves. At the very least, they mention that they use 3DSMax for their modeling, and they'd need to have some way to get their creations in that into the game.

The feature I'm hoping for actually is the placeable water from Fallout. It's not a very important feature, but it's one that I wish Oblivion had. I like it in Fallout 3/NV, but those games never really appealed to me enough to make anything for them

[Deeza]

I suspect you're right. The mesh format is the biggest real source of uncertainty right now. If we were to know it in advance, it would mean we'd be able to start getting ready for the TES5 version of ST before the game is even released.

Although if it is their own format, it's possible that the import facility might be integrated into the new CS, which would be very useful indeed.

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Eh, no one says that you can't prepare a few models ahead of time without exporting them into any particular format. The good news is that Skyrim is still current-gen, even if it looks better than Oblivion. You may be able to preserve all of the assets you have now and add them into Skyrim without having to update the quality like going from Elder Scrolls III to IV. It would save a lot of development time, anyways.

[Deeza]

Certainly it would. We'd need to create some ruined versions of the buildings from Morrowind, but that shouldn't be too difficult.